City dealing with windrows in school zones, residential bus routes slated for next week

As the city announced plans to remove excess snow that’s built up over the last two months on the edges of collector and bus routes starting next week, crews continued tackling the buildup in school zones.

Snow removal crews have been working recently to clear windrows from school zones – but their next step is residential bus and collector routes.

Officials said work will begin on Monday, Jan. 14 to remove windrows and extra snow left behind from the last round of snow clearing.

“In order to keep Edmonton Transit and commuter traffic flowing smoothly,” Bob Dunford, Director of Roadway Maintenance with the City of Edmonton said in a press release. “We’re going to have to get rid of the windrows along the collector/bus routes where we plowed.”

Dunford said the operation is expected to run for about three weeks, and officials are enacting temporary parking restrictions in each area as crews go along.

The parking restrictions will only be in place on residential bus and collector routes when windrows are being removed.

Residents will see temporary ‘no parking’ signs placed on routes in question 24 hours before crews arrive – and drivers in the area should expect to see strict enforcement, including ticketing and towing, before crews move in to clear the snow.

“We deliberately chose to use temporary, location-specific parking restrictions, rather than implementing a city-wide seasonal parking ban,” Dunford said. “Given the nature of the operation, it made more sense to ban parking only where crews will be working.”

The temporary parking bans will be in place on specific routes, until the snow removal work has been done and signs have been removed.

The city said locations where removal is scheduled to take place will be made public using many of the same tools used for seasonal parking bans, including public service announcements, by calling 311, social media postings, e-mail notifications and on the City of Edmonton website.